All the museums

Fowler Museum at UCLA

This important anthropology museum was established in 1963 by then UCLA Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy as the Museum and Laboratories of Ethnic Arts and Technology. A large, state-of-the-art facility opened in fall 1992 and was named for collector and inventor Francis E. Fowler, Jr., whose family was instrumental in making the project possible.
The museum holds approximately 150,000 objects, including an African collection that offers a superb representation of the arts of several African nations including Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Zaire, Kenya, and South Africa. The collection contains a spectacular array of Yoruba beaded objects, including a majestic throne, elaborate chiefly gowns, and sophisticated divination regalia.
Holdings from Indonesia and the Philippines include numerous sculptural works—especially from Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Luzon—as well as important collections of baskets from Luzon and plaited mats from Borneo. The museum’s collection of betel-chewing paraphernalia, representing several countries in South and Southeast Asia, is considered one of the finest in the world. Other Asian materials include textiles from India and Japan, shadow puppets from throughout the region, and a group of sculpture and textiles from aboriginal Taiwan. The primary strength of the Oceanic collection lies in materials from Papua New Guinea, especially the Papuan Gulf, Sepik River, Maprik area, and the Massim/Trobriand region. Also included are significant holdings from Aboriginal Australia and Polynesia, including forty-five rare Maori cloaks.
The museum houses approximately 24,700 Latin American objects, including a major collection of Haitian works related to Vodou. Mexican holdings include pre-Columbian, colonial, contemporary folk, and ethnographic collections. Additional objects include traditional art, costume, and textiles from Guatemala and Panama; African-American art and material culture from Brazil and Suriname; objects field collected among the Warao and Yecuana Indians of the Orinoco Delta of Venezuela; and pre-Columbian ceramics and textiles of Peru. Native American materials from the U.S. and Canada are a small but significant part of the collection.
The Sir Henry Wellcome Collection of 30,000 objects, assembled early in the twentieth century by Wellcome and given to the museum in 1965, forms the core of the African and Oceanic holdings and represents the single largest gift. An exceptional collection of more than 900 Mexican works was donated in 1997 by the Daniel Family and includes magnificent ceramic Trees of Life, Day of the Dead figurines, and masks from Metepec, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Jalisco, Puebla, and Guanajuato.
Little of the material is on permanent display, though it appears frequently in the museum’s active exhibitions program. Storage is accessible to scholars by written request only.

Galerie Wittert - Collections artistiques de l’Université de Liège

The Wittert Gallery, mentionned very soon as the Wittert Museum, preserves about 60.000 works of art which are the artistic heritage of the University of Liège. The beginning of the collections goes back to the creation of the Institution. From that time they haven’t stopped growing thanks to several donations. The most consequent is the legacy of Adrien Wittert, received in 1903 and which includes 25.000 drawings and prints (Dürer, Bruegel, Rembrandt…) among others. In 1929 the collections were completed by more than 550 African objects, collected with an ethnological concern, between 1891 and 1920, by Charles Firket, Professor of colonial hygiene at the University of Liège. A complete inventory of these items was done and many of them are often on display.

Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM)

GAM collections consist in over 45,000 works including paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, besides a rich collection of drawings and engravings and one of the most important European collections of art films and videos. Relying on this wealth, GAM holds true to its initial commitment regarding contemporary research, weaving a continuous exchange between its own historical works and today’s cultural debate, and setting a close relationship for its exhibition program between contemporary and historical collections. From October 2009, the works of the collections are exhibited according to four thematic routes that change through time, ensuring the visitor of renewed discovery of the collections and the possibility of an improved analysis of its masterpieces. The works of the major 19th century Italian artists, such as Fontanesi, Fattori, Pellizza da Volpedo and Medardo Rosso, as well as of the 20th century, among whom Morandi, Casorati, Martini and De Pisis, are restored to their ability of speaking in the present, and to exhibit all their splendour in close comparison with the art of the historical, international forerunners, from Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Picabia, of whom the museum holds important examples, and with the works of the new avant-garde of the second post-war period: Paolini, Boetti, Anselmo, Zori, Penone, and Pistoletto. Also, the museum devotes ample exhibit space to current artistic production.

Guandong Museum

With its collection of over 160,000 pieces (sets), the Guangdong Museum is a comprehensive museum that was open to the public on October 1st, 1959. In 2003, the government of Guangdong Province decided to build a new building for the museum in Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou. On May 18th , 2010, the brand-new Guangdong Museum opened its gates. The new building covers an area of 41,027㎡ with display area of 21,000㎡. It looks like a delicate ancient openwork container of treasures. The museum hosts some permanent exhibitions covering the History and Culture of Guangdong, its Natural Resources and form of arts (such as the Duan inkstone, Chaozhou Woodcarving and Pottery and Porcelain) as well as temporary exhibitions.

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art

Dr. David A. Cofrin and his wife, Mary Ann Harn Cofrin, made a substantial donation for the founding of the Harn Museum in 1983, stipulating that the facility be named in honor of Mrs. Cofrin’s father, Samuel P. Harn. The funds invested in the museum project by the Cofrins were the largest gift in university history at the time and secured a state of Florida match. With the assistance of the museum’s Founders Society, this gift enabled the Harn to open in 1990.
The museum is currently building a new wing, the Mary Ann Harn Cofrin Pavilion. It will add approximately 18,000 square feet to the museum when it opens in 2005. The museum’s collection includes 630 African works, 154 Oceanic works, and 535 pre-Columbian works. These artworks were acquired through purchases, gifts, or transfer from the University of Florida Gallery when the Harn opened in 1990. Objects of note include a Yoruba housepost, Ogun axe, communal Igbo Ikenga, complete Mano mask, Ethiopian Christian orthodox sacra, a group of Zulu earplugs dating from 1920–1980, a complete Mfengu matron costume from the Joan Broster Collection, an Owo ancestral altar and an Igbo men’s communal housepost.

Heard Museum

The mission of the Heard Museum is to educate visitors and promote greater public understanding of the arts, heritage and life ways of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with an emphasis on American Indian tribes and other cultures of the Southwest.

High Museum of Art

The High Museum of Art is the leading art museum in the southeastern United States. The museum has two locations: the Meier-designed main facility is in Atlanta’s Midtown arts and business district, and the High Museum of Art Folk Art and Photography Galleries are downtown in the Georgia-Pacific Center. The High's collections include African art, American art, decorative arts, European art, folk art, modern and contemporary art, and photography.
The High Museum was founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association. Its first permanent home came in 1926 with Mrs. Joseph M. High's donation of her family's residence on Peachtree Street, after which the association renamed itself in honor of Mrs. High. By 1955 the museum had outgrown the High Mansion and moved next door to a new, brick, climate-controlled building. In 1979, Coca-Cola magnate Robert W. Woodruff offered a challenge grant toward the building of a new facility for the High, and Museum officials exceeded the challenge. Renowned architect Richard Meier was selected to design the museum’s new home adjacent to the existing building. The High’s Meier building opened to great acclaim in 1983 and remains one of Atlanta’s architectural icons. Due to unprecedented growth in exhibitions, community programming, and collections, the museum has embarked on yet another building expansion program, part of the overall upgrade of the Woodruff Arts Center campus being designed by Renzo Piano. The High’s new buildings are scheduled to open in the spring of 2005.
The museum’s African art collection is largely the result of efforts by collectors Fred and Rita Richman, who for the last thirty years have made large parts of their collection accessible to the High through donation and loan. Other collectors have also made contributions over the years, most recently Sergio S. Dolfi, whose 2002 donation added some fine material.

Museum national d'Histoire naturelle

Administrating three of the world’s largest natural history collections, the Muséum’s
mission is to preserve, enrich and share this veritable archive of nature. Listed and stored among kilometres of shelves and drawers are the institution’s lush scientific and historical documentation and innumerable specimens of extant and extinct biodiversity and geodiversity: animals, plants, minerals, meteorites and fossils, as well as prehistoric, anthropological and ethnological objects...
One of the Muséum’s points of pride is the herbarium, the largest in the world with
8 million specimens, coming in behind its insect collection with its 40 million specimens. The vertebrate collection is famous for its historical pieces and its many type specimens (reference specimens) and boasts the only specimens of some extinct species. The geology collections,
of great historical value, include rocks, minerals and meteorites. On the living end, the Muséum’s zoological and botanical gardens are home
to numerous, often endangered species.
In addition, there are the treasures of one
of the finest natural science libraries in the world, with its monographs, periodicals, maps, photographs, manuscripts, engravings and objects as wells artworks, including the Muséum’s celebrated collection of vellums.

Musée d'Histoire Naturelle

The Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Lille is the repository for the town’s zoological, geological, industrial and commercial, and ethnographic collections. There are some 6,700 ethnographic objects—1,760 from Africa, 2,010 from Asia, 1,380 from Oceania, 780 from the Americas, and 770 from Europe. They were initially housed at the Musée d’Ethnographie de Lille, which was partially destroyed by fire in 1888. They were stored for 102 years in the Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille, before joining the collection of the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in 1990. The objects were given by various donors—including Alphonse Loillet (Oceania, 1851), Charles Phalempin (Melanesia, 1921), General Faidherbe (Africa)—and the museum has pursued an aggressive acquisitions policy through purchases as well as gifts. The collection features objects of great rarity and quality, some of which are unique. These include a Tahitian mourning costume, a Hawaiian cape collected by Captain Cook, three to’o sacred Polynesian woven fiber effigies, a Maori funerary canoe, a Marquesas Islands trophy head, a remarkable Benin ivory vase, and American Indian wampum beads and hide paintings.

Muséum d'histoire naturelle du Havre

Le Havre Natural History Museum schedules temporary exhibtion all over the year. These exhibitions take place in all the Museum spaces. They explore fields of life, mineral, vegetable and animal worlds.
A wide part of historical collections disappeared during the World War II but African collections (Archinard) and Oceanian collections (Le Mescam and Delessert) are preserved. Note that a part of these collections will be displayed during year 2015. Moreover, Oceanian collections will be displayed as well in 2016 with the exhibition titled "Pacific(s)". A part of ethnograhic collections is accessible on the museum's website.